KUALA LUMPUR (Apr 20): Shares in NCB Holdings Bhd — the operator of Northport in Klang — advanced as much as 7.45% in the intra-morning trade to RM2.74 from its opening of RM2.55, after Maybank IB Research forecast that it will post a stronger net profit for the first quarter ended March 31, 2015 (1QFY15) on strong throughput.

At noon-break, NCB (fundamental: 1.95; valuation: 2) erased part of its gains to settle at RM2.70, still up 15 sen or 5.88%, with 186,900 shares done, making it the second largest gainer across the bourse.

With the current price, its market capitalisation stands at RM1.26 billion.

In a report released today, Maybank IB Research also expects NCB’s logistics business to narrow its losses this year from RM53 million which it recorded in FY14, on better cost management.

NCB also said Northport is committed to add new capacity of 300,000 twenty-equivalent unit (TEUs) or 5%, thus increasing total capacity to 5.9 million TEUs by end-2015.

“In 1Q15, container throughput at Northport staged a rebound with a solid growth rate of 12% year-on-year,” the research house said.

In FY14, NCB recorded a 46% plunge in net profit to RM27.86 million from RM51.68 million, on lower revenue which declined 9.5% to RM919.38 million from RM830.99 million.

NCB is expected to release its 1QFY15 financial result on April 29.

(Notes: The Edge Research's fundamental score reflects a company's profitability and balance sheet strength, calculated based on historical numbers. The valuation score determines if a stock is attractively valued or not, also based on historical numbers. A score of 3 suggests strong fundamentals and attractive valuations.)